1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable device for holding medical records of a patient.
2. The Prior Art
In the past few years there has been a dramatic shift from inpatient management to outpatient ambulatory management of patients requiring hospitalization for medical procedures. This shift has resulted from economic necessity and has been made possible by fine-tuning of various aspects of care so that patient safety is not compromised. As hospitals are forced to become more efficient, the smooth transit of patients through the ambulatory medical encounter becomes all the more crucial. The patient's hospital stay may last only three or four hours, but in that time multiple health care providers have to handle and make contributions to the patient's medical record.
Prior art medical record holders are inadequate for the task at hand, and alternatives such as single file folders and clipboards offer little more than the merits of a paper clip. Much time is wasted looking through disorganized and uncategorized papers for an elusive document. Worse yet, a sheet of paper from the record of one patient may find its way into the wrong chart, leading to the potential for grave errors with consequent patient injury and litigation.
As will become apparent from the following description, the present invention overcomes the limitations incumbent in the prior art, providing unique solutions to the real time management of the medical record in the ambulatory care setting.
Attempts have been made in the past to provide a suitable system for keeping track of the medical records of patients; and prior proposals are as follows.
The Boone U.S. Pat. No. 2,713,531 discloses a filing device which can contain multiple filing folders. More particularly, this invention discloses a cabinet which can hold a multiplicity of clip boards in slotted rows. Each clip board is then provided with a flange which contains writing describing the text contained therein.
The Anthrop U.S. Pat. No. 2,955,372 discloses a clipboard chart holder in a rack-like system. This rack system allows the storage of charts to be in a staggered manner. Each face of the rack has this storage system of staggered charts. The bottom of this rack is mounted on a lazy susan revolving platform. Each clipboard is provided with extending arms, stretched out from either side of the clipboard. These arms hold the clipboard in this rack system.
The Block U.S. Pat. No. 3,393,030 discloses a hospital chart holder file cabinet and warning signal apparatus. A series of horizontally extending manually operable shafts are rotatably mounted in the file cabinet adjacent each of the file compartments. Warning signal units are arranged in spaced relationship in the file cabinet adjacent each of the file compartments, and warning signal means are provided. These warning signal means are operable by each of the manually-operable horizontally-extending shafts for indicating the presence of a work order in a hospital chart holder in the adjacent file compartment.
The Olson U.S. Pat. No. 3,472,387 discloses a portable hospital record chart holder apparatus including a wheel bearing frame which includes means for supporting hospital record chart holders vertically. There is also provided snubber bars which hold the charts in place and keep them from clanging. This chart holder is also mounted on rollers to make it portable.
The Mulloy U.S. Pat. No. 4,041,893 discloses a chart for use in hospitals and nursing homes, indicating the procedure to be taken in the continuing care of the patient. The device consists of a flat sheet of a relatively rigid material, including two vertical slots adjacent the respective side edges thereof. The device also includes associate linear slide member indicators, a horizontal groove and linear slide member indicator, and upper and lower rotary indicators. The various linear and one rotary indicator being operable to indicate the various procedures, the other of the rotary indicators being designed to indicate the time of a particular procedure.
The Carter U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,928 discloses a medicine cart which has a means for dispensing medicines including narcotics on nurse rounds. The cart includes a CPU with memory and various input devices. In addition, the section to secure narcotics is locked, and as the nurse rounds are made, individual doses of narcotics and medicines or both are dispensed. At the end of the medication round, hard copies reflecting individual patient medications are printed, and beginning and ending narcotics inventories are compiled. Chart entries for patients are likewise printed.
The Kelly U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,934 discloses a radiographic film holder comprising a wheel- bearing support base, hanging bars supported on the base, and a continuous flexible strip. This continuous flexible strip has pockets formed across the width thereof supported by metal flat bars inserted into the pockets, mated with opposing holes in the hanging bars, and forming a series of downwardly-hanging flexible strip, film record holder slots.
The Pantone U.S. Pat. No. 3,962,807 discloses a system for identifying X-rays wherein a coded visual display is affixed to the X-ray films to enable a radiologist to identify at a glance the part of the body radiographed. In addition the visual display would disclose the particular visit during which the X-ray was taken. Written X-ray findings are affixed to the X-ray storage envelope in either a color code, a symbolic code, or a combination of both.
The Sonsteby U.S. Pat. No. 4,865,549 discloses a documentation system that includes a plurality of sections, each section dedicated to a particular body system. Each section has a plurality of peel off labels, each label providing a series of assessment steps. Each label has a distinctive color associated with a particular section, with the text also being associated in distinctive color.
The Weber U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,745 discloses a suspendible folder having a front panel and a back panel with the bottom edges and a segment of each lateral edge secured to one another. The secured segment of lateral edges is defined by two points, the first point is near the bottom edge of the front panel. The second point is spaced from the first point by about one half to two thirds the height of the back panel. At or near the second point, a circular radius is cut, provided to assist in distributing tearing forces across both the front panel and the back panel.